Involution of labor protests in Russia

The article is based on the materials of the project “Monitoring of labor protests”, which collected information on protests for fifteen years — from 2008 to 2022. It discusses ways, i.e. forms of action of employees defending their interests in a public conflict with the employer, i.e. as part of a labor protest. The main feature of the situation is that the country has a “prohibitive” law on strikes, as experts call it. Not being able to express disagreement with the employer by legal means, employees are forced to look for some other ways to express their demands. The set of forms of protest is varied from the simplest, such as making claims, to the ultra-radical ones — hunger strikes, blocking highways, etc. In addition to them, there are also rallies, work stoppages, but some of them are used more often, while others are less common. Moreover, the frequency of use of forms varies from year to year. The article attempts to explain the reasons for choosing some and rejecting other forms. The main conclusion is that institutional forms are used less and less, and the parties to labor conflicts do not act according to the rules, but spontaneously, in the “ad hoc” style. Such a movement from institutionality to spontaneity is a development in the opposite direction, i.e. involution.